Today, the U.S. departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services released a joint final rule to overturn the three-decade-old Flores settlement and allow for the indefinite incarceration of children and families.
Every time we think we’ve seen the low point of the Trump administration’s cruelty toward immigrants, children, and families, it turns around and takes an even more punitive measure.
Coming just days after the public charge rule, this latest rule will ensure that children as young as toddlers will be locked up indefinitely and without any of the commonsense protections for kids in detention that the Flores settlement sets out. ampr.gs/2KYTVBr
Make no mistake: This rule will do nothing to deal with the issues pushing children and families to seek protections at our borders. And as we have calculated, the rule could cost up to an astronomical $1.3 billion each year.
Given how this rule diverges from the original Flores settlement, its protections, and its preference for release rather than incarceration—and given the steep costs—the courts should step in immediately and stop this rule from being implemented. ampr.gs/2KYTVBr
Katie Hamm, CAP’s vice president for Early Childhood Policy added:
Parents—regardless of their nationality, race, religion, or immigration status—want the best for their children. Providing safe and nurturing care for children is a value that spans across all cultures.
Children who arrive in the United States at the border are among the most vulnerable, which is why the Flores settlement was put in place decades ago. ampr.gs/2KYTVBr
The Flores settlement provides basic protections for children to ensure that they are well cared for until they can be placed in the custody of a trusted adult.
The Flores settlement has spanned numerous Republican and Democratic administrations, demonstrating that the obligation to protect children with the highest needs transcends political ideology.
This rule violates our collective values and years of precedent to keep children out of harm’s way. The Flores settlement requires that children in federal custody receive appropriate care and services in licensed facilities designed to hold children.
Already, we have seen the harmful effects of the cruel conditions that resulted from the Trump administration illegally holding children in overcrowded and unsanitary border patrol facilities without access to basic needs and care.
Removing legal protections for children will remove any protection or standard of care, resulting in potentially irreparable harm to their health and development. ampr.gs/2KYTVBr
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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that businesses have a First Amendment right to refuse certain services to same-sex couples.
The court sided with a Colorado website design company owner who refused to design websites for same-sex marriages, saying it violated her free speech rights.
In response, @Olinsky, senior VP of Structural Reform & Governance at CAP, issued a statement: ampr.gs/3NAXDla
The Supreme Court just gave businesses a license to discriminate.
A claim of free speech cannot be used as an excuse to undermine laws that prevent discrimination in public accommodations.
Today, the U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Following the vote, @PatrickGaspard, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: americanprogress.org/press/statemen…
Today, Senate Democrats—without a single Republican vote—made a historic investment in the planet, the economy, and the American people. The Inflation Reduction Act brings down costs on some of life’s biggest non-negotiable expenses: prescription drugs, health care, and energy—
answering President Joe Biden’s call to fight inflation. On its own, the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of economic and climate legislation in a generation. But along with the bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS and Science Act…
.@johnpodesta, founder and chair of the board at the Center for American Progress, released the following statement today on the infrastructure proposal circulating from members of the Senate “G20” group: ampr.gs/35vYZb7
If the bipartisan $579 billion proposal opens the door to a parallel reconciliation bill that creates a fairer tax code to support American families and makes critical investments in the clean energy jobs of the future, this can be one part of a broader agenda.
If the agreement closes the door to reconciliation, then it would be a bipartisan agreement to betray both middle-class families who have been struggling with child care and home care,...
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the ongoing legal challenge to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The case, brought by Texas and other conservative state attorneys general, questioned the constitutionality of the law in light of Congress zeroing out the individual mandate penalty as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017.
The court ruled that the conservative states lacked standing to bring the challenge because they incurred no injury by zeroing out the mandate.
Facebook suspended former President Trump from its platforms on January 7, the day after he helped incite a deadly and dangerous attack on the U.S. Capitol—the culmination of months of incendiary, false statements about the 2020 election from the former president.
Today, the Facebook Oversight Board announced that it would uphold Facebook’s decision to restrict Trump from both Facebook and Instagram.
However, the board punted the final decision back to Facebook, writing that the company should, within the next six months, “reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty.”